On This Day

Why did 7 demote Rod Young and Kay McGrath?

To improve ratings?

I reckon that’s the question Queenslanders still want answers to a decade on.

IMO it was more about promoting Sharyn Ghidella to weeknights after she had done six years on weekends after joining Seven at the end of 2006. And with Bill McDonald having joined the network following his departure from 10 at the end of 2012, BTQ execs wanted some fresh faces at 6:00pm after a decade of Kay and Rod at the helm.

The sudden change in the weeknight line-up roster, coupled with Nine making a resurgence under Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downes (who by that point were about to begin their fourth full year at the helm at QTQ; Lofthouse had replaced Bruce Paige in mid-2009), resulted in a significant swing in the Brisbane news ratings landscape in QTQ’s favour.

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21/1/2005 The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Mark Ferguson is to replace Jim Waley as the lead anchor of Nine News Sydney. This is despite the bulletin remaining well ahead of Seven during Waley’s two-year tenure, which followed the retirement of the late Brian Henderson.

Ferguson’s promotion came about after Nine’s coverage of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, during which he filled-in for Waley, rated highly for the network. But by the end of 2005, the bulletin’s ratings had dived south of Seven’s for the first time in decades, and at times were even below the ABC.

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22/1/2017 Nine News unveils a new set in Sydney, replacing the one that had been in place since June 2009.

This was the same set that Perth received in September the previous year; Melbourne would get its own the following week, followed by Adelaide in May and finally Brisbane in July.

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24 January 1988: At 6.30pm viewers on Channel Ten saw this baby for the first time

YouTube: Bris Geek

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Except in Brisbane where it wouldn’t be until the change from channel 0 in September.

PS: People who saw the “X” sign at TVQ 0’s Expo pavilion were curious as to what it meant.

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this sudden logo change, probably in combination with just becoming one of the last households (apparently) to obtain a VCR at around the same time, was what heightened my previously modest interest in station idents. These days though I have about as much interest as the networks do (that is, very little!)

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What has Jim Waley been up to since he was dumped by Nine?

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probably happily retired

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He did have a brief stint as presenter of Sky News Australia’s 6:00pm bulletin in 2009-10.

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He got cancer didn’t he while at Sky then decided to pull stumps

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Correct. It was ear cancer.

On an unrelated note, he did battle skin cancer towards the end of 2003, during which Mark Ferguson filled in for him on weeknights on Nine News Sydney.

The first logo of TEN to launch in Perth. 1988 Olympics on the network as well which was their last broadcast of an Olympic Games until 2014.

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On this day 22 years ago Ten, Nine, and Foxtel won a bid of $100 million a year to broadcast the AFL from 2002-2006 from Seven, who had rights from 1961-1986 and 1988-2001. The bid was more than double Seven’s of $40 million from 1999-2001.

Nine would air AFL on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, while Ten would air Saturday Argos and nights, as well as all finals exclusively including each grand final from 2002-2006. Foxtel would get the other games and launch a Fox Footy channel.

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On this day in 2011, channel 10 introduced introduced their ill-fated 6:30 local news bulletins, 6PM with George Negus, and reintroduced local weekend bulletins. By October, alongside the late news bulletin, they were all axed.

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Ten Evening News I believe it was called, was axed first around about April and replaced with 630PM with George Negus. Ten extended the 5.00pm bulletin to 90 minutes.

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It was another flawed part of an already flawed implementation. It was advertised as being very city-centric news but the reality was that it was really just a shortened catch-up of the 5.00 news. Even still, pulling the plug after only 3 months was premature.

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Are you sure about the date? I believe that the announcement was made just before Christmas in 2000.

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It changed the way we watched footy forever. Nine turned Friday Night Football into an event and broadcasted 2 Sunday games while Ten had Saturday arvo and Saturday night footy plus every match of the finals and the GF.

The Brownlow Medal was shared between Nine and Ten with Ten airing even-numbered years and Nine odd-numbered years for the length of the deal.

Foxtel’s Fox Footy channel had 3 live games a week plus replays of every match.

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